Karl was using summaries of the emails -- a fact he did not fully and clearly disclose. The summary he relied on suggested Rhodes had wanted to address State Dept. concerns about references to a possible terror attack. The actual email shows that Rhodes only said there was a need "to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities" -- i.e., there was no specific mention of State Dept. concerns.

Now, I agree 100% that Karl and ABC News made mistakes. As I noted earlier today, Karl wrongly stated that he had "obtained 12 different versions of the talking points" and cited "White House emails reviewed by ABC News." He also stated unequivocally that Rhodes "wrote an email saying the State Department’s concerns needed to be addressed," and put the summary in a quote was attributed directly to Rhodes. ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider told POLITICO that ABC News had not reviewed emails directly and said "Karl's report could have been even clearer" about that.

Marshall argues that the discrepancy between Rhodes' true email and Karl's summary "takes away key underpinning of what [ABC News] reported." I don't necessarily dismiss that interpretation, but I am wary of discrediting Karl's entire report based on these errors alone. As I noted earlier, using one error in a report to discredit the entire report is a favorite -- and often unfair -- political tactic.

So, I'd like to run an experiment. I'm going to take the relevant portion of ABC News report, but I'm going to replace the inaccurate summary with Rhodes' actual email. My changes to the ABC News report will appear in bold. If folks think this changes Karl's report, I'd love to hear why. If they feel like it doesn't change Karl's report, I'd also like to hear why. My email is dbyers@politico.com.

Here goes:

Summaries of White House and State Department emails — some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard — show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points.

State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to this paragraph drafted by the CIA in its earlier versions of the talking points:

“The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.”

In an email to officials at the White House and the intelligence agencies, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland took issue with including that information because it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned …”

The paragraph was entirely deleted.

Like the final version used by Ambassador Rice on the Sunday shows, the CIA’s first drafts said the attack appeared to have been “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo” but the CIA version went on to say, “That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.” The draft went on to specifically name the al Qaeda-affiliated group named Ansar al-Sharia.

Once again, Nuland objected to naming the terrorist groups because “we don’t want to prejudice the investigation.”

In response, an NSC staffer coordinating the review of the talking points wrote back to Nuland, “The FBI did not have major concerns with the points and offered only a couple minor suggestions.”

After the talking points were edited slightly to address Nuland’s concerns, she responded that changes did not go far enough.

“These changes don’t resolve all of my issues or those of my buildings leadership,” Nuland wrote.

In an email dated 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. — three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows – Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote the following email:

“Sorry to be late to this discussion. We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation. ... There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don’t compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression. ... We can take this up tomorrow morning at deputies.”

After that meeting, which took place Saturday morning at the White House, the CIA drafted the final version of the talking points – deleting all references to al Qaeda and to the security warnings in Benghazi prior to the attack.